I am new to using Audacity, and I'm sure there is a simple fix to my problem. When I playback my recordings, the speed of the recording sounds as if it is 3-4 times the speed of what I actually recorded. How do I change the settings so that the playback matches up with the speed of my voice when I am recording. Thanks in advance!

Any chance you're pressing Play-at-speed (the green arrow next to the slider) instead of Play (the big button on the control toolbar)? Is the speed slider all the way to the right, i.e. 3 x normal speed?

After 6 months of using version 1.37 regularly without issues, I am suddenly having this exact problem. When I playback or try to edit a voice track that I have recorded, often (but not always), in the middle of the track, without me having done any changes to any setting, the voice speed and pitch suddenly increases dramatically, making it useless, of course. There are no speed settings that are out of line or that change as the track suddenly increases its speed and pitch. I am recording into Dell Vostro 1510 computer, using an AKG D790 Microphone into a MicPort Pro converter to USB connection to the computer. Any help on this very frustrating problem will be greatly appreciated.

I believe I got this a few months ago, it was the project rate if I remember correctly. It caused huge problems just as you describe! I'd go through all the rate settings on your mic as well as Audacity.

Re project rate, this does not change during the session for the project or the track (all the same at 44,100). Nor are there any microphone or MIcPort Pro settings for it that I know of. What is so odd is that in a single track, without any changes of settings by me or noticeable setting changes while recording or playback, the problem suddenly appears without explanation, and continues for the rest of the track.

I have now upgraded to version 1.38, and experience the same random change from a good recording mid-track to a high speed chipmunk version, unexpectedly and without any changes while I am speaking into the microphone. Once it goes high-speed, it continues in that mode to the end of the track. There is no known change in sample rate (44.1). My only guess is that there could be some interuption somehow because of other software at work or a loose connection at the microphone, but that's pure speculation in the absence of any other theory. Ideas? In the meantime, I may experiment to see if the audio can be corrected so as to avoid the need to re-record.

I too, have encountered this problem. I am running version 1.3.11 (Beta). I am recording in mono from our soundboard (Yamaha M7CL) to the channel 1 XLR input on an M-Audio Mobile Pre unit, which is connected to my computer via a USB connection. I was recording our church service today and I put on the headphones that were being used to monitor the recording and found that it switched to 'chipmunk' mode, although at the beginning, it was recording normally. It also played back the same way, normal at the beginning and 'chipmunk' mode partway through the recording. When I quit and restarted Audacity, the recording was back to normal. I then took the original recording and changed its speed by -49.5% and it sounds very close to the original recording before the speed change. I tried several different speed changes to find out which one came the closest to the original. I was surprised to find the it was not -50%, but -49.5 percent that was the closest to the original. I have tried this on two different computers and get similar results. Of course, I am now at home trying to duplicate this problem and cannot. Does anybody else have any additional information on this problem?

No, you won't. As I said earlier, this is one of those "this can't be happening" problems. I don't think we have any idea. So here's the deal. Y'all get to find out what's common. Like you're all using Dell computers or you're all using the same Audacity version. Get creative. Do all the shows fail the same number of seconds from the beginning?

Someone posted they could restart Audacity and the problem would vanish? Can you all do that?

For what it's worth, I have attached a small snippet of a recording I did yesterday. The recording was going along fine, then all of the sudden, at 55:14 into the recording, it sped up. This happens at about 5.03 in this snippet. You can see that at 5.03 the frequency of the voice doubles. I was also incorrect in my numbers yesterday, a -50% speed change gives me the closest sound to the original, not -49.5%. I noticed that other people report this problem when they are recording in mono, as I was yesterday. I have never seen this problem when recording in stereo. I will do more testing on this tonight.